September 20 2005

Information Week is reporting on Gartner's
assessment of Microsoft's "Office 12" preview, including a recommendation
to look at IBM instead:

Despite many potentially powerful
enhancements, most enterprises will find it hard to justify upgrading [to
Office 12] during 2007 and 2008," wrote a half dozen Gartner analysts
in an online
briefing posted to the Stamford,
Conn.-based company's Web site. ...
Among its other recommendations, Gartner advised corporations to evaluate
IBM's Workplace product line as an Office alternative -- "Workplace
is far more 'real' today than Office 12," the analysts said -- and
to keep an ear open for later Office 12 details, including some kind of
integration with Groove Networks, the company that Microsoft bought in
March.

"We note the lack of any statements about Groove Networks' technology,"
said the analysts. "It will be a bad sign If Microsoft does not integrate
Groove by the time Office 12 ships."